Steeled Eyes and Boiling Blood - Fire Extinguished by Tears
by Youre Gonna Get Slapped
Summary: Leon is desperate to find a way to reintegrate Steve back into society, but he's slowly coming to terms with the fact it may no longer be possible.


A lab-coated man came into view on the screen as Leon set himself down, watching as he sat on the opposite side of a stainless steel table, a younger male on the other side. The teenager had both of his arms bolted down onto the table by his wrists, and out of view; his ankles fastened to the chair he sat on. He seemed quite calm, but his face was low; expression hidden by a veil of fiery-copper hair that hung over his eyes. Once the coated technician set down his clipboard with a mild clatter, the teenager stirred with a twitch; slowly but surely raising his head to face the other man. The specialist twisted a frown and pulled his arms back a little; resting his elbows down and clasping his fingers together, giving the young adult the once-over with a glance. Apart from his eyes that shone with an unnatural golden hue, the boy seemed rather normal.

 _"Tell me... How much do you know about yourself? As much as you can remember. Take as much time as you like to think about it."_

Leon watched as the man spoke, leaning forward on the edge of the lounge and resting his own elbows onto his knees, weaving his hands together and holding them just over his mouth; his eyes squinted a little in observation. On the tape, the teenager blinked, but he didn't give much more of a reaction, having lowering his face again.

 _"I'm... My name is Steve Burnside, born in the year... The year 1981. But, somehow, I'm still seventeen. I... don't remember my parent's names. Only that my mother stayed at home for me, and my father worked for Umbrella. I don't think I had siblings. I... don't remember much of my childhood, but it seems like I was on good terms with my parents. I had a few friends. And... A-and..."_

Leon himself was rather uneasy as he watched Steve fumble, the teenager going silent a moment as words failed him, pulling only idly on his bolted-down hands as a thing to occupy his time. His knuckles soon turned white as his fists clenched a little tighter, though as they began to shake, he relaxed them again. The specialist sighed as he wrote a few things down in the space given, looking back over to him again.

 _"It's alright if you can't remember, Steve. We have plenty of time."_

 _"N-no, I remember a little more. I've just got a headache..."_

The adolescent could only mumble out his words, closing his eyes as he rocked his head back; trying to roll his neck a little. A few rather loud-sounding cracks echoed through the audio track as his neck loosened up, a groan accompanying it. Leon could definitely see that he was uncomfortable and cramped, like he hadn't moved in a long time. Maybe even years.

 _"_ _I was good in school, but I dropped out when I was fifteen. I don't remember why. I don't know if my parents cared or not. But... somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, I got infected with... Whatever I have. What was it called?"_

 _"Tyrant-Veronica, or just T-Veronica. It's a non-contagious virus, but the strain is so complicated, scientists have yet to make a vaccine for it."_

The explanation had the teenager sitting up just a little, twisting his wrists in the binding cuffs and paying attention closely. Watching, Leon could only wonder what had been going through his head. Questions about where he was, what was going to happen, who was he to trust? He could only imagine what fear he was in, worry, maybe anger? He had just come out of a frozen tube for God's sake, and they decided to pull out an interrogation not even an hour after his awakening? And they wondered why he didn't want to talk...

 _"_ _T-that's it... T-Veronica. It was insect-based, right?"_

The agent noticed the specialist on the screen had immediately turned over his shoulder to glance at the one-way glass on the opposite side of the room, sending a raised eyebrow of an expression to the people obviously observing from the other side. A few moments of him reshuffling his papers, and the man set his eyes back on Steve, nodding just a little as a response.

 _"That's right. And it seems you have traces of Pyrokinesis as well."_

 _"Pyro..kinesis..? What's that?"_

 _"Pyrokinesis, the art of creating heat and fire with nothing but the focus of the mind."_

Steve's golden hues shone with a dim brilliance as he stared across to the stranger, the television screen barely able to contrast his eyes correctly; turning them all into one single colour. It looked a little strange, or so Leon thought. It was surreal, but it was Steve, that's just how he was. A true marvel. Golden-eyed with liquid fire coursing through his body. A disease that could have been utilised as a weapon. No records remained of his disappearance all those years ago. Leon knew. He was the one who looked. With all the connections he had to people of power, he couldn't rustle up anything that was worth anything to his case. All they had to go by was Steve's word.

 _"Oh. Yeah... I have T-Veronica, but who or what infected me, I don't remember. I just remember, for so long... I was extremely cold, and I slept. My memory goes blank after the year 1998... Just before something horrible happens."_

 _"But how do you-"_

 _"I don't really know. I just... Feel as if something terrible gave me my amnesia."_

Steve interrupted with a quick pipe and shuffled himself up in his seat, dark lines under his eyes more visible as he shook the hair away from his face, the bright lights making him squint. With a grumble, he leaned forward and rested his face onto the cold metal between his bolted wrists, resting himself down. There was a sense of fatigue in his body language, like severe jet lag of fifteen years that sapped his energy. A grunt from the lab-coat technician and he stood up with the clipboard, trailing over towards the camera of which the video was being recorded on, the whole image shaking as it was fiddled with.

 _"_ _Thank you. That will be all for today."_

The last image shown was of the teenager quietly shaking on the steel table, hiding the fact Leon was sure was tears. Eventually, the camera was switched off the and remainder of the video feed turned to grey static, the harsh whine of the television decoding nothing ringing out in a drone call.

Leon sighed deeply as he rubbed his face into his palms, giving a frustrated response to the lack of information it gave. After all that, he couldn't say he was any closer to helping Steve back into society or figuring out what he had forgotten. It just still didn't seem realistic. Fifteen years of his memory just upped and vanished? Cryostasis wasn't a normal topic either. So if that truly was the reason why he hadn't aged in that time, then who created the device? Why did they use it on him? And who did it? The assumption that the late Albert Wesker abducted him to perform experiments was dismissed quickly, as the tyrant had been sighted in other countries at the estimated time of Steve's disappearance. That and if that were true, Leon knew that Chris would be all over the case. There was always some kind of unexplained connection between the two. It was assured. Leon couldn't explain it, but then again, not many could, other than the men themselves.

Rubbing his face over again, he grabbed up the remote and glanced over the controls, moving his finger over the stop button, but he paused. It seemed the tape wasn't quite over, and it wasn't what he was expecting.

The screen flickered as more feed came through, an unknown amount of tape that he had yet to discover. Leon relaxed again as he settled back into his seat, jade eyes observing quietly with a sense of concern. The video feed showed a blur at first, of greyish-orange colour, before the fuzziness began to clear. The room was on its side, or more realistically, the camera had been knocked over, shedding a different light on the situation. It seemed as if the interrogation had gone wrong. Horrifically. The room being recorded had gone up in flames, which explained the harsh flashes of orange and yellow staining the room in a heated blur. The audio was garbled, in a sense that any sound was definitely too difficult to decipher, apart from the howling of flames passing by the microphone.

Straining his eyes, Leon caught sight of a figure, no, two figures. One was definitely Steve, who had somehow broken from his restraints and held a different technician up against the wall by nothing else but his neck. That wasn't all. The teenager was up in flames, his clothes gradually melting against his skin and dropping to the floor; his expression unreadable due to the horrible quality of the tape. He was holding the man up with ease, one hand plastered firmly against his throat, burning all that he touched; skin, cloth and all. Gusts of charcoaled paper flew along the currents of heated air and blinded the camera a moment, a shrill scream of the lab technician ringing out and straining through the speakers. Leon was quick to snatch up the remote and turn down the volume, covering at least one of his ears to protect himself from the onslaught of noise, cringing from the distorted sound. Soon the cry reeled down into a bubbling gurgle, and the sound of something hitting the ground interrupted his thoughts.

Another scream struggled through the speakers once more and he was forced to turn it down again, the cry being even louder than the last. Though unlike the previous, it had to be from Steve. He could recognize it from the higher pitch, his concern growing as time passed. The camera lens was still obstructed by the charcoal and it was impossible to see anything other than the languid flicker of the flames. Leon understood now Steve never wanted to talk about the interview. It was a horrible mess that went wrong in more ways than one.

"Damn..."

Again, he lifted the remote to turn off the video, but again something caught him, preventing him from pressing the button. He forced his ears to hear the faint murmur, before the camera succumbed to overheating and switched off. Curious, he rewound the tape again and turned up the volume to hear through the howl of the fire, to hear the voice he swore had spoken while he wasn't paying full attention. They were words, he could tell, in a proper sentence, but he wasn't sure what they were exactly.

"Leon?"

The agent blinked as he stared at the screen, before realising that the voice was far too clear to have come from it. Looking over his shoulder quickly, he paused the tape with a flick of his wrist and rose onto his feet almost immediately, throwing the remote aside to face his roommate.

"Steve, I thought you were asleep?" he babbled quietly, scrambling across to swipe the remote up a last time to turn off the television. Behind the lounge, the very same teenager that he saw in the video stood with his hands curled up against his chest with a worrisome look, remarkably less... Aflame.

"A scream woke me up."

Leon felt a twinge of guilt as the adolescent glanced down, those same golden irises becoming obscured by the curtain of copper-red strands that hung over his face. Just from face value, Leon would have assumed he was a kid with spunk and a bit of an attitude problem, but with good morals and a kind heart. Leon saw absolutely none of that now. Steve had always been excessively quiet ever since he was placed in his care, shuffling about the house as if a permanent raincloud took up residence above his head.

Exhaling a gentle sigh, the agent wandered around the couch and paused in front of him, having folded his arms to observe the smaller's stature. The teen's flaring, odd-coloured eyes were aglow, though the lowering of his mood dimmed their usual radiance. Everything about his body language screamed 'I'm uncomfortable'. He didn't have to be a mind reader to see that. "I thought you were in trouble," Steve added with a murmur.

"You don't need to worry about me."

The way Leon tilted his head caught the younger's attention, listening intently compared to moments before when he could barely look him in the eye. "I'm made of tougher stuff than I look. Besides, it wasn't anything bad. I was just watching a movie."

"But that was me," Steve curtly interrupted. Needless to say, it surprised him. "That scream... That was me?"

Leon perked a little at the question, though he wasn't entirely sure if it was aimed at him, as the vagueness of his tone of voice seemed off. Was he asking a question or confirming something he thought he was thinking? "That was during the fire... When I lost control."

Leon soon lost his surprise, realising now that Steve knew what he was watching. Considering how lost the teen was and how fast his emotions skipped to intensity, he didn't find the information too shocking. A wrong word or misplaced sentence, or even things taken out of context; it all contributed to his quick mental spike and over-reactive nature. He was just afraid of being hurt again, either physically or mentally. And he understood that. Anyone would have that reaction after what he'd been put through.

He shook his head, a hand coming down to rest on Steve's shoulder, gradually settling his nerves and bringing his emotions back under wraps.

"You're in control now," he spoke softly, a hint of hope in his voice. "That's what matters."


End file.
